


The Ballad of Lars and Sadie

by Vexie



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alcohol, Depression, F/M, Fluff and Angst, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-10 13:09:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4393172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vexie/pseuds/Vexie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It'll just be for a week, maybe two," Sadie had said. "I just need to think about some stuff. Get away, you know? Vacation."<br/>Her face had changed when she'd said that--Lars couldn't tell how. But it had. His stomach dropped and he knew what she wasn't saying. So he did what he had always done. Lars lied.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ballad of Lars and Sadie

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based pretty heavily on the Ballad of Love and Hate by the Avett Brothers. I heard the song and this pretty much jumped out at me. It was Lars and Sadie all over. Go listen to it. Some lines are used. 
> 
> Two things: I do find Lars's treatment of Sadie problematic and that is addressed. I ship them but it's sort of conditional and in no way do I think their relationship could be healthy without some major work on Lars's part. I felt like that should be established up front here. 
> 
> Second, I wrote this before Keystone Motel aired and so I've set this story on the West Coast (nondescript, but that accounts for time difference.) I'm thinking they're more eastern or Gulf now, maybe?? But for story purposes, they're on the west coast somewhere. -__- 
> 
> Ight, enough of me talking.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sadie had said.

                      “It’ll just be for a week. Maybe two,” she’d said. “No big deal.”

                      But when she said that, her face had changed. Lars couldn’t really tell how, but it had. She had hesitated without really hesitating. His stomach had dropped. He knew what she wasn’t saying. She wasn’t sure how long she’d be gone. He remembered that moment over and over. It had been the moment he knew he’d screwed up.

                      “I just need to think about some stuff. Get away. You know,” She’d smiled then. “Vacation.”

                      He hadn’t smiled back. There were so many things hidden in that statement, peeking out and glaring at him. He didn’t want to touch them

                      He couldn’t smile. Instead, Lars had done what he always did. He had lied.

                     She’d never even asked, but he’d lied anyway. It had been a good one—he’d rolled his eyes up into his head, which he tossed back as he threw his hands into the air. A perfect picture of agony.

                      “Ugh, I have to run the store by _myself_? For two _weeks_?” is what he’d said. “Thanks a _lot_.”

                      He’d expected the relief when her face fell flat and her eyes dimmed, but he hadn’t expected the little pang of—what?

                      He didn’t want to touch that, either.

 

                      Sadie hadn’t seen her father since he’d moved out East one day out of the blue. (It hadn’t been _that_ out of the blue, really; the signs were everywhere, in retrospect.) She’d cried about it back when it happened. Lars had sat with her for almost an entire night while she cried. She thanked him the net day, then hadn’t talked about it since. They’d been in middle school. Barely. Lars remembered Sadie’s father as a tall guy shaped like an upside down triangle. Broad shoulders angling down to a narrow waist. There was no trace of him in Sadie—she looked like a carbon copy of her mom. The man disappeared without leaving any reminders of his presence and the transition between pain and rightness seemed to take place very quickly. To be honest, Lars had forgotten that Sadie had a father at all.

                      It hadn’t occurred to him to ask how Sadie or her mom felt. Were either of them over his disappearance yet?

                      As the postcards started coming in from landmarks all over the East Coast from day one, Lars guessed Sadie’s dad wasn’t really over it himself. He was pretty clearly making up for lost time.

                      “Having a Great Vacation” came from the Statue of Liberty.

                      “Dancing Through Life” came from Broadway.

                      “New York!” came from Times Square.

                      These passed without comment from Lars’s numb hands into Steven’s hungry ones. The kid kept them all in that stupid hamburger backpack, taking them out occasionally to daydream and speculate about the places he’d never been. He sat on the counter and inspected each postcard with a magnifying glass so he could take in every last detail.

                      Steven travelled all over weird places having weird adventures and he was hooked on New York. Stupid. At least someone enjoyed them. She hadn’t written anything but his address and “—Sadie” on the back.

                      “We have a beach _here_ ,” Lars mumbled at the latest one: “Wish You Were Here” from Virginia Beach. He flicked it onto the ground and watched Steven run to catch it as it fluttered toward the sandy tile.

 

                      After a few days, Sadie started texting him again. Lars was a little relieved when the first “How’s the shop?” came into his inbox. The radio silence had worried him and only cemented the thought that he’d done something wrong.

          He didn’t text her back, though. The texts came regularly at first—jokes and attempts to get him to respond and updates from her adventures with her father and her little half-brother. Snapchats from landmarks and short videos of East Coast strangers.  
         Lars didn’t know what to say. He read the messages over and over and pieced together a bunch of replies, but he couldn’t ever settle on one. He typed out messages and deleted them all without sending them. Nothing sounded right. All of her texts sat opened but unanswered in his inbox.

          No amount of “Lol, nice dog” or “Looks like fun!” could say what he didn’t know how to say. He couldn’t get over the elephant to act normal—whatever that meant.

          Slowly, she started texting him less and texted Steven about her adventures more. Even as the texts slowed to one or two a day, Lars knew every detail of Sadie’s days. Steven chattered through Lars’s annoyed glares without being phased in the slightest.

                      Lars was kind of glad for both the updates and the constant noise.

 

                      The first “I miss you” came to Lars’s phone at 10 at night his time. It would have been—what—2AM? Yeah, something like that. 2 AM for Sadie.

                      Lars stared at the screen for several minutes without blinking until the words were burned into his mind, then sent back the sunglasses emoji. No words, just the emoji. The moment the message gave him its cheerful little “sent!” notification, Lars threw his phone across the room in a burst of adrenaline. He didn’t know why he did either of those things, and stayed awake that night thinking about them.

                      “Woah, what happened to your phone?” Steven asked the next day, gently touching the spiderweb of cracks across the screen of Lars’s phone. Lars snatched his phone off the counter and crammed it into his pocket.

                      “It’s always been that way,” he lied.

                      He wasn’t sure why he did that, either.

 

                      Buck invited Lars to come hang out with them a few nights later. The days at the Big Donut were already slow, but that day dragged on for _ever_. Lars paced nervously behind the counter. He even did actual work to try to pass the time. For the first time since—well. In a while. For the first time in a while, Lars felt excited about something rather than feeling like he was carrying a box of Lion Lickers on his chest all the time.

                      He did have the sneaking suspicion that Steven had put Buck up to it.

                      He didn’t really care, to be honest.

                      He’d brought four different T-shirts with him and a couple different pairs of gauges. He kept checking on them in the back room, trying to decide which ones were coolest. Everything had to be perfect.

                      This was going to be an awesome night.

                      “Hey. I miss you.” Came in fifteen minutes before close, stopping his anxious pacing.

                      It would have been fine. He could have handled it. He could have just ignored it, if it weren’t for the second text.

                      “Are you doing okay?”

                      This one came while he was in the back, changing shirts and getting ready.

                      Lars sat in the back room and stared at the wall, not knowing how to answer the question.

                      He couldn’t bring himself to move when Buck knocked on the door. Or when Sour Cream tapped out a beat on the glass (was it a song reference he wasn’t getting or was it some sort of Morse code?). Or even when Jenny laid on the horn of her car. There was a long silence, then he heard Jenny peel out and race off into the night.

                      Lars was relieved that they were gone.

                      He kind of hated himself for that.

                      When he got up off the floor to open the store the next morning, he still hadn’t come up with an answer for Sadie.

                      His phone’s battery had died and he got through the day fuelled on the relief that he had a reason not to think about it. Whether he forgot or chose to ignore the charger in the back room behind the TV was beside the point.

 

                      She didn’t text him again for several days.

                      After a while, even Steven was wary crossing Lars’s path. It wasn’t that he was mean or anything. He just…wasn’t. He wasn’t anything. He nodded at people who passed by and said only what needed to be said. He worked, went home, and did nothing.

                     

                      “I’m coming home—I’ll be in late tonight.”

                      Lars read the words over and over—the whole sentence first, then one word at a time. He got caught on the word “home,” and again on “tonight.” He hadn’t finished processing what they meant when the next text came in.

                      “Can I see you?”

                      Lars breathed in glass shards as he typed and erased several messages, ranging from “I can’t wait to see you again,” to “Fuck off.”

                      He hit the wall. Something crunched a little bit. Downstairs, his mom yelled his name—his full one with the middle name and everything. Something about knocking it off.

                      Breathing fast, he replied:

                      “Barely noticed you were gone. I’ll see you or I won’t. Whatever.”

                      He read it once. It was too mean, maybe. He read it again. It was aloof. It revealed nothing. It was safe. He hit send.

                      Lars waited. Once a year, the numbers changed on his phone to mark passing minutes. An age went by before he decided she wasn’t going to respond to him.

                      It was 5:15. If her flight left at 6, she’d land around 11. It’d still be about an hour and some change before she would get back to Beach City.

                      _What do I do?_

 

                      Lars’s mom gave up. She’d been standing in his bedroom doorway for the past ten minutes, but no matter how often she repeated her request, he didn’t reply.

                      “Teenage boys,” his father shrugged. “They need their space. He’ll eat when he’s hungry.”

                      Lars’s parents left for dinner without him. Lars was okay with that.

                      He wandered around the empty house—had it always been shaped like this? Had the rooms always been arranged like this? He ran his hands across the walls. His heart tried its hardest to beat its way out of his chest.

                      Lars found himself standing in front of the linen closet at the end of the hall. On the top shelf sat his parents’ liquor. He grabbed the bottle closest to the edge, stuffed it into his backpack, grabbed his headphones, and headed out the door.

                     

                      “Woah, man, are you okay?”

                      The words were muffled, but they were the first words spoken to him in a while. Lars pushed back his headphones and looked up at Buck Dewey’s concerned face (he assumed it was concerned. Any emotion was hidden behind mirrored glasses. His mouth held its usual pout, giving no indication either way). His own face felt warm. His legs tingled pleasantly. Everything looked bigger somehow.

                      “Yeah, ‘m good.” Lars tried to nod. His head sat still but the world moved for him. Close enough.

                      “You don’t look good. Need a ride somewhere?” Jenny offered.

                      “Nah. Wanna stay here,” Lars said. “It’s good here.”

                      He buried his bare feet into the sand for emphasis. His toes felt good buried in the wet grains.

                      “Wanna talk about it?” Buck asked. He was still kneeling close to Lars’s face. Within kissing distance. Lars giggled at the thought. He should do it, he thought to himself, and settle a long standing bet between him and Sadie. Who would be more mad? Jenny or Sour Cream? Buck didn’t seem to notice how dangerously close he was to being kissed. He was staring at Lars’s face. Lars kind of wondered if Buck was going to kiss him instead. That would be a plot twist.

                      “Dude I think he might ralph,” Sour Cream said, taking a step backward.

                      “Nah, he’s not there yet,” Buck replied, adjusting his sunglasses.

                      Much to Lars’s disappointment, the teen stood and crossed his arms.

                      “But he’s got a lot of thinking to do. Sour Cream, help him out.”

                      “Mmhmm,” Sour Cream nodded. He squinted at Lars, then reached into his pockets and drew out several multicolored iPods of various models. He looked at Lars again, then shoved all but three of the iPods back into his pockets. Finally, he knelt down. Lars stared at him in wonder. Sour Cream picked up Lars’s phone and looked at what was playing. He frowned, then unplugged Lars’s headphones from the phone and plugged them into a light blue 3rd gen iPod Nano. He gently placed the earphones back over Lars’s ears. A steady but gentle beat filled his ears.

                      Sour Cream stood and nodded, obviously satisfied. Buck signaled that they should leave. He gave Lars a thumbs up. Jenny touched his head. Sour Cream tapped his ear and winked. The three teens walked away. Lars felt better for it.

                      Lars stretched out his arms and his fingers grazed the bottle he’d brought with him. Good. He took a deep drink and held his breath to keep from coughing. Sour Cream’s music was hypnotic.

                      So maybe the cool kids liked him a little bit after all? Now he had an excuse to go talk to them to give Sour Cream his iPod back. Sweet. If only his other problem would resolve that easily. He reached for the bottle again.

 

                      The sand was rough against Lars’s face. Not good. Some fine grains kept going into his nose every time he inhaled. Lars wanted to roll over. On three. One-two-three! He didn’t so much move as the world tossed him onto his back. That didn’t feel great. How had that happened? At least it was better than breathing sand.

                      “Aw, he’s not dead,” a voice sighed. Lars knew that voice. He struggled to remember who it belonged to. Purple. It was purple whoever. The crazy purple one who came to get donuts with Steven sometimes and ate the wax paper they came wrapped in. He wondered…

                      Lars cracked his eyes open and tilted his head backward. Yep. Dark curls bobbed as Steven looked down at him, good-natured concern all over his little round face. Lars really wanted to touch his bouncy curls but his hands were either missing or too heavy. Not sure which.

                      “What’s wrong with him?” Steven asked, looking up at the purple one. “Should I spit on him?”

                      Lars groaned, trying to vocalize the alarmed “no!” that materialized in his brain. He wasn’t quite up to vocalizing yet.

                      “Nah, I’ve seen this before. It’s what happens when humans have too much of this stuff,” the purple one took the empty bottle from where Lars had been holding it too his chest. She held it up to Steven. Lars closed his eyes before Steven’s face fully transformed from recognition to disappointment.

                      “Hey, what’s going on, Lars? Why are you doing this?” Steven’s voice was soft, but it gets louder—no, closer. Steven must have been kneeling down by his head. Lars didn’t answer and hoped Steven believed that he couldn’t. Steven took a breath to ask another question.

                      “ _Steven!_ ” a shrill voice cut through, interrupting whatever Steven had been about to say. It was the white one—the bird-shaped one. She sounded upset. “Do you have any idea what time it is? What are you doing out here?”

                      “Amethyst woke me up. It’s Lars,” Steven said, his voice drifting further away as he stood. Amethyst. The purple one. Lars remembered now. He was waking up, kind of. Lars listened to Steven’s soft shuffle through the sand as he moved to meet the bird one. Pearl, he thought. _Skiff-skiff_ , said Steven’s feet.

                      “Amethyst! Human children need to sleep!” Pearl said.

                      “Chill, Pearl.” Ha! Lars had guessed right. “I needed him. It’s a human thing,” Amethyst finished.

                      Ballerina footsteps came his way. There was a bright light, then something cold and metal prodded his face, lifting it and turning it.

                      “I see,” Pearl said, her shrill voice deepening with distaste. “Well, what are you going to do with him?” There was a brief silence.

                      “I think me and Lion should take him home. He’ll be okay in the morning. I think,” Steven said. He sounded commanding and certain until the last two words. Lars agreed—he probably wouldn’t be okay in the morning. But that gave him an excuse to stay in bed all day.

                      “Good. That’ll get rid of him,” Pearl murmured. “Just be quick, okay?”

                      “Okay. Help me get him on Lion,” Steven said.

                      “No problem!” Amethyst sounded a little too pleased.

                      Lars was unceremoniously hefted and draped onto something warm and soft. Silky hair tickled his face. He inhaled deeply. The scent was familiar—baby powder and vanilla and a fragrant, flowery something. As Steven talked to Amethyst and Pearl in a low voice, Lars relaxed into the softness and the familiar scent. He thought about a sandcastle that he’d made and the woman who had wiped his tears away when the sea had knocked it down. He inhaled again and heard a ringing voice asking if he’d like her to help him fix his castle. He wrapped his arms around her—no, around the softness. He thought about the color pink.

                      Small arms wrapped around his waist.

                      “I’ll be back soon!” Steven called out cheerfully. Lars shifted, disappointed. He didn’t want Steven to take him home. He wanted the pink woman to come take him home—she made him feel happy. He buried his face deeper into the softness. He felt Steven lean over him.

                      “Take us to Lars’s house, Lion. But be gentle, okay?” Steven said.

                      Lion? Were they really on top of Steven’s crazy pet? They started moving. At first, Lars tensed, knowing the motion wouldn’t agree with him, but the jarring gallops he expected never came. The movement was graceful and smooth.

                      “What’s wrong with you? It’s not just today. You’ve been weird lately. What’s going on?” Steven asked as Lars began to relax again. Lars didn’t answer. Steven sighed, his breath hot on Lars’s back.

                      “You’ll be home soon. Maybe get some sleep or something,” he said, sounding defeated.

                      Home. The word rang uncomfortably in Lars’s mind. What was important about home? There was something that he—Lars remembered with a jolt.

                      “Wait, no,” he mumbled. His mouth was dry. He swallowed hard.

                      “What?” Steven leaned toward him.

                      “Can’t go home,” Lars tried to explain.

                      “Why not?” Steven asked.

                      Lie. Lie and get out of this. Steven would never understand the truth. No one would. Lie.

                      “Sadie’s there,” Lars said.

                      One of Steven’s hands moved away from Lars’s waist for a moment and the warm air slowed around them.

                      “You don’t want to see Sadie?” Steven said.

                      Lars shook his head, effectively nuzzling the softness.

                      “Is _that_ what’s wrong? What happened between you two?” Steven asked. “Why don’t you want to see her?”

                      “Dunno what to say,” Lars admitted. “She wants to talk. I can’t.”

                      Everything stopped. Lars went flying through the air until he found the ground with his spine. He opened his eyes with a groan. He was lying in the grass in his own front yard. He located Steven just as the boy pulled a bottle of water from—well, actually Lars wasn’t really sure where. It looked like it was in that big pink Lion’s mane, but that didn’t make any sense. Steven unscrewed the cap and tossed the water onto Lars’s face. Lars sputtered and coughed.

                      “Cut it out, Lars!” Steven shouted.

                      Lars stared at Steven, dripping. Steven’s fists were balled at his sides. For once, his dark eyes burned with anger, though tears formed in the corners.

                      “Just stop lying! You were weird when she was here, and you’ve been miserable since she left, and now that she’s back, you’re a mess. Just go in there and be honest for once, okay?”

                      For a long time, Lars was frozen. The only moving thing was the constant drips of water from his nose and ears. He just stared at Steven. A lot of things were shouting at him in his brain, but one by one they silenced into a single-word question. His voice broke as he asked it:

                      “How?”

                      Steven lowered his fists, his face clearing. He smiled and reached down to pat Lars in the chest, like he had so many times before.

                      “It’s easy. Whatever’s in here, say it,” Steven said.

                      Lars flopped back onto the grass. Steven leaned over him.

                      “The more it scares you, the more important it is that you say it,” he continued. “Go in there and tell Sadie everything you’ve been thinking. It will be okay.”

                      “I’m just gonna lay here and die,” Lars muttered, putting an arm over his face.

                      “Lion?” Steven said, sounding far too cheerful.

                      Lars found himself picked up by his scruff. The lion gave a great leap and Lars found himself in his hallway, right outside the kitchen. He turned, but Lion was gone.

                     

                      Sadie was sitting in a chair at the table. Ronaldo was leaning against the counter, looking concerned.

                      “Seriously, I can take you home right now. It’s 3AM. How long are you going to hang around here?” Ronaldo said.

                      “As long as I have to. Go home, Ron,” Sadie said. “Thanks for picking me up from the airport and bringing me here.”

                      “No problem,” Ronaldo said. He hesitated. Lars watched from the shadows of the hall, peering carefully around the door. He wanted to hit Ronaldo for the way he looked at Sadie.

                      He also wanted to run back outside and let Ronaldo take her far away where he wouldn’t be able to do the things he did to her anymore. Ronaldo was the kind of guy Sadie deserved—not Lars. He pictured them laughing together that night at the lighthouse and he ached so bad he almost couldn’t stand.

                      “If you need anything at all, call me, okay? I’m here for you.” The last few words were emphasized.

                      “Thank you,” Sadie said. “I’ll be fine.”

                      Ronaldo left out the kitchen door. Lars knew he’d cut across the backyard and hop the fence into his own yard, just like he used to when they were kids. The back door shut and Lars counted to ten. Taking a deep breath, he walked into the kitchen. His entrance could have been more graceful, but the counter seemed to be a few inches closer than he remembered it. Sadie got to her feet.

                      “What happened to you?” She asked.

                      To her credit, Lars was not at his best. He was dirty and wet. He had sand in his hair, which had flattened into lanky, damp curls that slapped over his forehead. His hands shook and his legs weren’t that steady, either. He stared at the floor.

                      “Sadie, I’m sorry,” were the words that tumbled out of his mouth, pushed out by a small hand on his chest.

                      Sadie was taken aback. She stared at him and mouthed his words back.

                      “What for?” She asked finally.

                      Lars worked to find the words. His knees quit working and he slid down to sit on the linoleum, his back against the counter. Brown droplets of water fell from his shirt and hair to sit on the floor next to him. Sadie sat down next to him. Her face was worried behind the sunburn. How did she stay so pale living on the coast like this?

                      “Are you okay? she asked. She hesitated, then reached out to touch his face, moving sand and curls away so she could inspect him carefully.

                      _Just be honest_ _for once_.

                      He almost threw up first, but that wasn’t right. Not now. This lie was okay. He took a deep breath to calm his stomach and his nerves.

                      “I’m . . . I’m yours,” he admitted. The words surprised him. They were true. His face suddenly burned and he closed his eyes before she could start to laugh at him. “That’s it. Whatever.” He tossed the next three words out like a chaser to soften the blow of the first two. Sadie didn’t laugh. He opened his eyes in surprise as she leaned in to embrace him—dirt, sweat, water and all. Her head leaned against the same spot Steven had touched on his chest. He felt her smile.

                      “I shouldn’t have been gone for so long,” she said softly against his shirt. “I’m yours, too. Forever.”

                      Lars hesitated, then put his arms around Sadie. He wasn’t so much holding her as gently touching her with all of his arms. Was this right? It felt sort of right. He wanted to apologize for being wet and dirty and drunk. He wanted to apologize for being cruel to her and for lying and running away. For ignoring her and using her. For being himself. And finally for loving her. His arms tightened around her. That felt better. He would be honest--Just for tonight.

                      “You’re mine…” he whispered, bowing his head into her warm hair.

 

                      “What do we do now?” would come later. They’d have to face that it wouldn’t be an easy relationship. Old habits would have to be broken. For a long time after, Lars would keep saying the wrong thing and forgetting everything. But then he’d remember the pressure of a small hand on his chest and the agony of the way things had been before. A thousand apologies would end in “I’m yours and that’s it.” But that would come later.

                      Lars didn’t know if it would be enough in the end. Neither did Sadie.

                      For the moment, it was enough to just sit on the kitchen floor in each other’s arms. He was drying into a crusty, sandy mess. She was exhausted from her flight. Neither of them cared. They stayed where they were, holding each other and talking about all of the things the other had missed during Sadie’s vacation, or about just random stuff in general. And every so often, just to remind her (and himself), Lars would tighten his grip around her and say quietly:

                      “I’m yours.”

                      The sun would come up and they’d figure out what to do then.

                      But for now:

                      _I’m yours_.

                      And that was it.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought of this! I welcome questions, comments, concerns, critiques. :3 
> 
> I'm considering writing a second part from Sadie's perspective, but I haven't decided. Thoughts? 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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